Tuscany: 4-13 Siena II

The thing about travel, especially in another country, is that you can have extreme highs and extreme lows – sometimes on the same day. In the last 30 hours or so, we’ve had both. It’s an interesting lesson in attitude: when, late yesterday, we were struggling, I was able to realize that it’s only temporary, that soon the good times will return. The same is true of good times, of course – everything is temporary – but of course it’s easier to stay “in the moment” when the moment is cool.

We had some non-cool moments yesterday. Our flight from Amsterdam to Bologna was fairly non-eventful. The highlight was going over the Alps, where the mountains still had some snow, the valleys looked perfectly manicured, the cliffs were steep, and seemingly every part of the whole picture was civilized. The highest mountain valleys had pastures, roads, and buildings. And then, suddenly, they were gone, and we were over flat land. Then, just as suddenly, we saw villages with terra cotta roofs and steeples rising from the middle, and I thought, “Well, this has to be Italy.”

We landed at the small airport in Bologna, where we boarded a bus for the terminal, waited five minutes or so for everyone to get on board, then drove perhaps 100 feet. We could have walked in less time. We picked up a pre-arranged rental car, and we were off – for what we assumed was an easy 90-mile drive: 60 on the interstate to Florence, then 30 on a highway to Siena.

Mom and Dad got out maps and books and entertained themselves trying to match road numbers on the maps with road numbers on the signs, and I pitched in by calling out names that I’d see on the way (“Can you find Scioppo on your map?”), when all along I was applying my basic rules of navigation: If youre going from a major city to a major city to another major city, you start in A, follow signs to B, then follow more signs to C, then look for your place. But it is comforting to know where you are on the way, reassure yourself you’re on the right road, and give yourself something else to think about when you’re working on an hour or two of sleep in the last 30 hours.

So off we go, down the SuperStrada (expressway) to Florence. And pretty soon we came to a complete stop. I saw an electronic sign over the road with something about an accident, and something else about Florence, but I didn’t catch it all. We started up again, then we stopped again. What we didn’t know was we had run into the Perfect Storm of Bad Traffic. For one thing, we were on a road known for congestion: between two big cities, in the mountains. For another, it was the Thursday evening right before Good Friday, when 11 million Italians were on the roads. For another, it was rush hour in both towns (we left Bologna at 5). For another, there were multiple constructions sites happening. And a couple of accident. And starting the next day, for several days afterward, trucks were banned for the holiday, so in essence every truck was hustling to make its destination. On small, crowded roads.

It took us four and a half hours to drive 60 miles. And with all the construction, plus it being an interstate, and us not being too enthusiastic about looking for things, we couldn’t even hop off the road to pee. I wound up doing that in a construction site, and as I got back to the car, another one had stopped and a woman stepped out, we exchanged a knowing smile that goes beyond words, and she walked down into the same site.

It was a tough, tough night, with me getting sleepy and my folks getting frustrated, and none of us really knowing what was happening or how long it would take. We made Siena around 10:30, and that’s where my navigation system ended. My Big Plan, such as it was, consisted of “that road on the map seems to lead from the highway to the hotel. Well, it didn’t. And these old towns aren’t real good about street signs, at least not to be seen by bleary-eyed foreigners in the middle of the night. So I asked directions from a MacDonalds manager, and had a good time trying our each other’s languages out on each other, and basically what I got from him was “Go down this road, take another one that comes in from the right, go to a square with a big gate, go past that to another square with another big gate, and a lot of buses, and then ask somebody else for directions. And that worked. The “somebody else” turned out to be a couple of cops, who said something to me when I walked up to them which may have been “You know, you just parked illegally and jaywalked right in front of two police officers.” (I was told later that what they probably said was, “Whatever you need, please ask us on Monday.”) But they said take this road to that square, then this other road to that other square, so I did that, and asked a cabbie, and found myself driving through swarms of people on a small, crowded street where I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be driving – but I did not care. Thank My Dad, thank goodness, spotted the hotel, and we were saved. It was 11 p.m., six hours after we started out 90-mile drive. Unreal.

We settled into our rooms, and they sent up a completely typical snack for this part of the world: salami, prusciutto, a few cheeses, some fruit, and a bottle of chianti classico. We knocked all that back and crashed. Hard. Although I did have one last bit of excitement when I requested a wakeup call – in Italian. I said, “Per favore, mi svegli alle otto,” the critical part of which sounds like “me smell ye,” which is how I remembered it. It’s the same way like car rental is “autonoleggio,” which sounds just like “out on a ledge-io.”

The hotel is a renovated 16th-century villa in the middle of the medieval town center, and I’ll post some pictures of it. It’s probably a lot more “luxury hotel” than “charming old villa” than you’re thinking, but it’s very nice.

I think I’ll have to quit for tonight. I borrowed a transformer from the hotel, so I could plug my computer into the wall, and just a minute ago it buzzed, then popped, then started getting really, really hot. I do NOT want that to happen to my computer, so I’ll qut for now, save battery power, and get another transformer thing in the morning. Maybe it’s a lesson that I should spend less time on this thing. In fact, I think I will, and I’ll just type up notes from now on. There.